


Puzzles (With Time)

by Kittywu



Category: Shingeki no Kyojin | Attack on Titan
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Jearmin Secret Santa, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-12-26
Updated: 2015-12-26
Packaged: 2018-05-09 12:42:53
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,414
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5540462
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Kittywu/pseuds/Kittywu
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"With time, Jean learned to unravel the mystery of Armin Arlert, he found his way through him. The number of question marks in his head next to equations that resulted in Armin became less and less."</p>
            </blockquote>





	Puzzles (With Time)

**Author's Note:**

> Dear [fishing-clocks](http://fishing-clocks.tumblr.com/), i was your secret santa and this is your gift :3  
> i kinda tried to go with something between romance and angst and i really hope you like it !!   
> merry jearminmas !!

At two am in the morning, Jean Kirschstein was lying awake, turning from side to side in his bed, staring at the pattern of little white nobs on the ceiling wallpaper. He had tried to sleep, he really had. He had tried everything that had usually would have helped him to fall asleep, thinking of nice and quiet things, counting sheep, he had nearly considered to get up and make himself a hot milk.

But as much as he had tried, his eyes didn’t want to stay closed, his mind didn’t want to rest.

It was not the fact that the room kept being illuminated by the headlights of the cars on the busy street in front of window. It was not the fact that he had to curl himself up in his blanket to keep warm. And it wasn’t the distant buzzing noise of street, of city, of passing cars and passing trains. He was used to all of those things, he had lived in that apartment for quite a while now.

What kept him awake was the thought of a certain blond, of silky hair with a golden shimmer, of porcelain skin and clear blue eyes.

Eyes as deep as the ocean, eyes as captivating as the summer sky.

Deep blue eyes turning away from him, being squeezed shut. The beautiful glisten disappearing from them and being replaced by a look that had made his heart ache in his chest. Hurt, despair. Sadness.

\--

Thinking back at it, he had never known how to really approach Armin. Armin was a mystery, a riddle that he still had to solve. His looks had gathered Jean’s interest, the soothing tone of his voice had drawn him in. His little quirks – the way he moved his hands when he got excited about something, the way he bit his lip when he was nervous – those were the things that had made him fall hard.

But the thing that had made it impossible not to stay close to him had always been the mystery that enveloped him.

Maybe it that had been the problem in the first place, Jean had never been good at solving puzzles. Maybe his approach hadn’t been rational enough for someone like Armin.

Armin, who could spend hours with reading about theories that explained the universe. Someone like that probably had to be approached like one of those theories. With a sharp mind, with concentration and diligence.

And with time.

\--

“You seem kinda stuck,” Jean said. He sat down next to Armin and tried to get a glance on what he was working on.

“I’ll figure it out somehow, I guess.” Armin looked at him, a smile on his lips. His frown hadn’t disappeared though, and his eyes still looked troubled. He turned his eyes back to the notes in front of him, chewing on his pencil absent-mindedly.

“Maybe I can help?”

He moved closer to Armin, looking over his shoulder at the notes as well. Armin didn’t flinch, he kept staring at the notes without paying much attention to Jean.

The scribbles he was looking at looked like an incomprehensible mess of numbers and letters, formulas and sketches. He couldn’t even decipher half of what Armin had written, and most of the formulas didn’t make sense to him.

“Thanks, but I’ll be ok. Besides, I don’t want to bore you with my formulas.”

“It’s fine though,” he hummed. Somehow, he was tempted to move even closer to Armin. To close the small gap between their legs, to brush his arm against Armin’s in a casual motion to get a better look at the problem in front of him.

But Jean wasn’t sure if that was the right approach to solve the problem he had in front of himself, how to solve the formula that would tell him how to decipher Armin Arlert.

\--

The call had come suddenly, without any warning.

At first, he hadn’t known what was happening, Armin had answered, he had walked away from the couch and then he had stopped.

First, he still had kept his eyes on Jean, he had still smiled in a way that said “wait until I come back.” And then the smile had faded, his eyes had turned away.

He had looked like something inside of him had broken. Like someone had shattered a part of his heart.

And then, he had lowered his phone. Slowly, his arm had dropped. It had looked as strong and lively as a straw.

“My best friend had an accident,” he had said, his voice stale from shock.

He had exhaled and it had looked like he had exhaled everything that had been inside him.

“Eren had an accident,” he had repeated.

\--

The first time Jean had talked to Armin, a cold and windy day in early March, he had felt at ease and on edge at the same time.

On edge because after exchanging a couple of words with him, he had started to like him. He felt like balancing on a high wire, that it would only take one wrong step to make a fool out of himself. He tried to keep the conversation going, he tried to add more to the picture in his mind.

But it felt so easy, so natural to talk to him. Like he could just be himself, honest and genuine. He didn’t feel weird when their gazes met. He felt like talking to someone he had known for a long time, someone who had solved all the puzzles that made him Jean Kirschstein, someone whom he could trust.

Slowly, he started to get the hang of Armin, he started to pick up what he liked to eat for breakfast and what he liked to drink when he curled up with his favourite book. Things like his taste in music and his favourite foods followed suit.

Yet, he felt like there was so much to discover about Armin, so much that he didn’t know yet.

He wasn’t sure if Armin knew about those things himself.

\--

 “Still trying to understand the universe?” Jean asked with a smile. He handed Armin a cup of tea and Armin smiled at him as he took a sip.

“The universe is rather complex, in fact.” With his free hand, he gestured at the seat next to him.

“And here I was thinking you could uncover the mysteries of space and time in a couple of weeks. What are you working on today?”

This time, the notes looked less chaotic and more readable. Even though they still didn’t make too much sense to Jean. But there were formulas that looked familiar from high school physics class.

“Light, wavelengths and colours – the movement of photons and such. Do you want me to go into detail?”

Armin took another sip of the tea Jean had brought him. Then he laughed and Jean laughed with him.

Armin’s laugh was like light itself, it was bright and warm. And just like light, he craved it. He craved for it more than just the lunch hours they spent together.

He wanted it to illuminate him outside of university hours, outside of cafeteria walls or campus parks. And slowly he was starting to gather courage to take another step on the high wire he sometimes still felt like walking on. But he had learned how to keep his balance.

“Hey, Armin, do you want to go see a movie with me this Friday?”

\--

And with time, one movie turned into multiple. One movie turned into movie nights, turned into Armin sitting on his couch with his note in his lap, working on his things while Jean sat at his desk and worked on an essay.

With time, he the gap between their legs disappeared when they sat next to each other and Armin’s hand brushed over Jean’s when he reached for the salt on the other side of the table.

With time, Jean learned to unravel the mystery of Armin Arlert, he found his way through him. The number of question marks in his head next to equations that resulted in Armin became less and less.

Armin didn’t like to be a bother to others, that’s why he hated to accept help.

Armin was like a lake that seems shallow but turns out to be bottomless, even though to Jean he had always been bottomless and it was Armin who still had to discover his own depths.

Jean learned to understand him, and he tried to make Armin understand the things that he wouldn’t find in his physical formulas and theories about the nature of the universe.

\--

When he had seen the first tear roll down Armin’s cheek, he had felt like a marble statue. All of a sudden, his arms hadn’t obeyed his head, his legs hadn’t moved, as much as he had wanted them.

He knew that he should have said something. That maybe Armin had waited for him to walk up to him. That maybe Armin had wanted him to tell him some comforting words, those words that were stuck in his throat.

But he had just watched the tears fall down, he had just watched Armin crumble.

He had been frozen stiff.

\--

“How’s the world of physics today?” Nonchalantly, Jean rested his crossed arms on Armin’s head, he took a glance at Armin’s notes and ruffled his hair before sitting down next to him.

“Splendid,” he said.

Maybe Jean had imagined it, but it had felt like Armin had leaned into his touch.

“Do you mind reading over this paragraph of my paper and telling me if it makes sense to someone who doesn’t have any background knowledge?” He looked at Jean with his large blue eyes and his bright smile. He was contagious.

Jean smiled back at him and took the sheets that Armin handed him. “Which part?”

Armin’s skin left his own with a tingle of electricity where he brushed over it. He leaned in close to point at a long paragraph in the middle of the page. “That one. I spent so much time reading about it that I’m not sure if I forgot the big picture.”

“I’ll tell you what I think about it.”

\--

He should have said something. He should have done something. Anything actually. But he kept staring at Armin, at the tears that had been rolling down his cheeks, at small twitches of his chest as he had cried.

He felt helpless and lost next to him. He had thought he had understood, he thought he had learned. So why hadn’t he been able to think of something to do, to say?

Maybe Armin had still been a mystery after all.

Maybe he had been the mystery himself all along.

But he had realised that he had never expected a situation like that for some reason, and that he had never thought about what to do. If Armin would want to be alone or if he would want him to hold him and comfort him.

And it probably had been the most stupid thing to do, but he had just muttered something like “You probably want to be alone now” and left.

\--

If there had been one thing he had learned in the time that he spent with Armin, it was that he was in love with him.

Actually, it had probably been love at first sight. But he didn’t actually believe in love at first sight, he only believed in the urge to get to know Armin, to spend time with him and to be close to him that he had felt since they had met.

He believed in the fluttering feeling that Armin left in his stomach whenever he smiled. He believed in his thoughts that kept wandering to him. He believed in the smiles and glances they exchanged, the “accidental” touches and the long conversations.

And when they had kissed for the first time, when he had dared to take the next step after weeks of testing the waters and not daring to jump into them in the end, it had felt like the pieces that had been missing to the puzzle had appeared in front of him.

\--

“What a lovely day to not spend your lunch break with physics, don’t you think?”

He kissed the top of Armin’s head and placed a cup in front of him, Armin tilted his head upwards so Jean could press another kiss on his lips.

“Are you implying that I should rather spend my lunch break with you?”

“I’d never imply something like that,” he said with a laugh and sat down next to Armin. Like two magnets, their hands found each other, their fingers intertwined and Jean started to rub circles over the back of Armin’s hand with his thumb.

“Too bad, because I was considering to put away my notes right now.”

Jean’s smile widened, the gap between their lips shrunk. Armin’s lips were soft on his and slightly parted, one hand in Jean’s the other on Jean’s neck.

\--

It was close to three when Jean took his cellphone from the nightstand next to his bed. It felt heavier than usual in his hand, he played with the weight for a while, turned it around, took it into his right hand, his left hand. He looked at the white numbers telling him that it was far too late to make a call.

He unlocked his phone nonetheless and dialled Armin’s number.

“Hi,” he said in a low voice as he heard a click on the other side.

“Jean?” Armin sounded a bit hoarse, it took him a lot of effort to press the words out of his throat.

He sounded like he had cried all night.

“I was wondering if you’re ok,” he said. He heard Armin shift in his sheets. He didn’t get an answer.

“I’m sorry I didn’t say anything earlier. I stood there like an idiot. I’m really sorry.”

“It’s ok.”

“If you want to, I’ll come over.”

“It’s 3 am, Jean.”

“And?”

He was already awake and there was no way for him to get any sleep that night if he didn’t go. If he didn’t spend the night at Armin’s place. He wanted to hold him in his arms. He wanted to whisper soothing words into his hair.

Armin sighed. “You don’t have to.”

“I’ll be there in half an hour.”

Armin didn’t answer, he didn’t hang up as well though.

“Jean?”

“Yeah?”

“I love you.”

 


End file.
